The Good Samerican

 The Good Samerican 

¿Y quién es mi prójimo? Who is my neighbor? Luke 10:29 

The Day Before

HA-llelujah. HA-llelujah. HallelujahHallelujah. Handel’s choral pinnacle reduced to tinny ringtone. 

Hello, this is Pastor Blank ... Mrs. Pilgrim, how are you?... Barbara, I am sorry to hear that... Barbara, I ... yes, I am sorry it has been hard ... Yes, I will come over this morning. Okay. I will see you soon. 

Blank hung up the phone and paused for a moment to pray. Mrs. Pilgrim sounded troubled.

On Mondays Pastor Blank always skipped shaving so his silver stubble climbed his round potato chip face like shining salt crystals. People thought he was lovable and comfortable, like a spiritual teddy bear. Sixty years ago he was a basketball star, six feet with long arms. Now, he sits hunched over his computer in his home office working on the monthly newsletter.   

Good men and women, friends and patriots, brothers and sisters in Christ: 

As I write to you today, I can’t help but notice my hands are no longer the smooth-skin young man’s hands that once stretched out lovingly over my congregation at BirchCreek Fellowship to preach from the Word. For years we have been fighting to preserve the glorious vein in our country's great spiritual mine—Judeo-Christianity. Now we come to a strange moment in our struggle, following a most unlikely leader. And yet, he is on the brink of doing something monumental. His presidency will appoint new judges to the Supreme Court. 

Friends! It will be possible to turn back the tide! Perhaps we can reverse Roe v. Wade! At least we will place new restrictions and with each new restriction—save lives! Maybe prayer in schools again? Maybe marriage will again be for one man and one woman? 

However, I know it hasn’t been easy. The President is attacked on every side and the liberal media is always happy to show him in the worst possible light. And, sometimes he makes choices that are not in line with our values. Sometimes he has to do hard things ... 

Blank knew it was wrong to separate families, but border laws had to be enforced somehow. He stands up to pace back and forth in the bonus room turned office. The cluttered office includes his desk which is built in under a window and banked on both sides with bookshelves bursting with books. Behind him against the adjoining wall is a television, across from that a couch, and a long coffee table in between. Further back toward the door is a small dining room table with four chairs and two more shelves dripping with books. There is a path only wide enough for one that he walks back and forth while thinking, which he began to do. 

At eye level on the wall, above the couch, adjacent to his walking path, is a cheap version of Da Vinci’s Last Supper. As Blank wanders, he looks at the print: The President’s methods are harsh, Jesus, but it’s good he wants to secure our borders and preserve America for Americans. 

Having spent a substantial portion of his sixty-five years crafting words and studying “the Word” his brain was in its groove sermonizing. Still thinking about the borders, he stares past Jesus in the print, through the open window and thinks the Italian mountains look just like the blue ridge mountains. 

Blank sits back down at the computer to begin a new paragraph, but turns his head around to make another point to the Da Vinci print, definitely looking at Peter now. We’ve been kicked around … but now we have control of all three branches. We narrowly avoided socialism and now we can fight secularism with real firepower! 

While it was hard to tell what Peter was thinking, John has his eyes closed and is softly shaking his head. Blank’s party did control two branches of government. The judicial branch was supposed to be above parties. The other sentiments about socialism and secularism are old, worn coins, unreadable and worthless. Everyone in the print was tired of hearing them, even Judas. 

May you sleep in peace knowing that we are mobilizing toward a better future.

The war is not over, but we have won many victories. The storm will soon spend its fury. Every good soldier sleeps deeply after a significant victory. But after sleep we must continue to pray and vote and give! You are part of a revival! Americans working to preserve America for Americans! 

Okay, I must get going. I need to get over to see Mrs. Pilgrim. She hasn’t been doing well since Arlen died. Blank felt ashamed that he had not been by to see her since the funeral. He kept meaning to call on her, but BirchCreek was in the middle of a fundraiser for a building extension, so he never found the time. He grabbed his coat and headed into a rainy morning.  

Tuesday 3:50 am

Barbara Pilgrim turned sixty-eight last week. Some people get rounder and rounder with age. Others grow thin, like a tree branch cut off from its water source. Her thinning is offset somewhat by excess skin. When Barbara raises her arm to stir the oatmeal on the stove you see her thin wrists and her almost as thin upper arm, even while the skin sags and rests on the sleeve of her housecoat. She isn’t hungry, but she cooks oatmeal. It's her morning ritual. She turns on the news while stirring. She turns off the stove and drops a dollop of butter and stirs in brown sugar. I see the democrats are up to their old tricks again, calling us dumb and narrow-minded, she tells herself.

Click. She can’t watch this. Her doctor warned her about getting her blood pressure up in the night. She’s got all morning and the rest of the day to deal with it if it gets high. At this rate she’ll need a nap at ten. Lately, she’s been thinking about her grandparents. They didn’t have television most of their lives, so most of their news came from neighbors or the radio. The only time she remembers her granddaddy listening to the radio was for a ball game. Now it is news all day and every day. She almost never watched local news and she certainly didn’t hear much about the town from neighbors.  

Her house is much bigger than the one her grandparents lived in, but her yard is much smaller. Gosh, I have so much more money than they ever had, but I don’t feel rich. Pilgrim knows that her grandparents worried about the future and had to live through two world wars, but she doesn’t remember that because she was only a kid. What she remembers is her grandma draping a sheet over the swing set installed with a bench swing. Barbara would lie in her grandma's lap while grandma swung and sang Shortnin’ Bread until she fell asleep: 

Put on the skillet, put on the lid; 

Mama's gonna cook some shortnin bread; 

Oh Mammy loves shortnin bread. 

These days she doesn’t seem to sleep at all. There is no world war anymore, but everything feels like a war. Maybe that is why she gets up at three thirty everyday. It's a soldier feeling. 

*****

Jimmy Frank sits thinking with his van running. Not really thinking as much as waiting for courage to get the better of fear. Was it courage? Need. Necessity is the mother of invention, especially when you’re going to do something you don’t really want to do. Jimmy had been planning this robbery for two weeks now, ever since Benji Pilgrim told him about it. Ben’s an addict and came around selling the idea of robbing his grandma. He’s too messed up to pull off anything like this, he probably already stole from her and got kicked out. He told Jimmy there was a box of cash in her bedroom closet.  

Jimmy is six three with shaggy, dirty blond hair. He is trouble. He uses his size to intimidate. But it’s wearing on him. He wants to change. He hopes this will be his last job. It has to be. Jimmy got way behind on some payments and ended up borrowing money from a local with a bad reputation. He needed to pay him back or disappear for good. Honestly, he was on the fence on which of those he would choose once he got the box of cash.

Jimmy pulls out of the parking lot onto a street-lit empty road. It's three fifty two. 

*****

Scott Camp slams the door from the garage and then thinks about the time. Oh well, maybe my wife will wake up and I can tell her about my night. It is three-fifty-three in the morning. He has so much energy coursing through his body. His eyes look tired though, a slight raccooning. He is a handsome, athletic five foot ten with dark hair and blue eyes. His blue eyes are effective. Early in his career he developed a technique of hesitating before he spoke. The longer he stared, the more power the words that followed. 

He was returning from having a few drinks after a political rally hosted by a local church, BirchCreek. Pastor Blank was too tired to come out with him and the others but Blank’s younger brother joined them. Boy, he was a riot! Oh, but the rally! Man, the crowd was going crazy! We have to win. I bet there were a thousand people packed into that tiny church! 

There were five hundred and forty-two people. Who wouldn’t be high after something like that, Scott thought as he drummed his fingers on the island in the kitchen. 

When Scott was on-stage giving his stump speech, he felt like an orchestra conductor. If he wanted a few commiserating boos, he kicked the media around. For clapping he talked about winning a real victory for family values, for booming cheers he said something about strengthening the borders. 

He decided to make a sandwich. Scott pulls ham and cheese out of the fridge and lays two slices of bread into the toaster oven. While he is waiting he reads the newsletter from Pastor Blank at BirchCreek on his phone. Pretty good, but too wordy, he thinks to himself. Ding, toaster’s done. Scott is three bites into his sandwich before he sits down. What? That’s weird. He sees out his front window a van turning left onto Pennfield. The van turns off its headlights before it turns. Scott lives on the corner of Kingsbury and Pennfield. It’s weird to see a van driving in his neighborhood at four am, but something else altogether to see it cutting the lights. 

This is either one conscientious neighbor or someone up to no good. I need to find out. He runs to the safe and gets his gun. Making sure it's loaded, safety on, he sticks it in his pants. He grabs his keys and pauses to look at a photograph of his wife. I can’t let this happen again. Then he walks outside.

*****

“!Dios mio!” exclaimed an exhausted Alfredo Espino, as he entered the driveway from his night job. He felt exhausted, but he could never go to sleep right away. The night air, combined with the laughing chit-chat between his co-workers lingered in his bloodstream like the half-life of caffeine. Tonight the laughter was low, almost absent. There are rumors of ICE conducting work raids. It has everyone worried. 

Alfredo has a curly black mane. His brown eyes are so dark they look black. His face is flat and when he smiles he looks like the good lion from one of the golden spined kids books. He works two jobs. His day job covers his side of the rent and food. His night job is to save extra money for a trip to Colorado where his oldest brother lives.  

He loves breakfast food, especially, bagels, empanadas, muffins, eggs, bacon, and is always hungry, especially now, but he doesn’t want to wake anyone. Alfredo lives with his brother and his brother’s family. Sometimes his nephew, Eric, will wake up and come down. It’s so fun to see him, but he’s only six and needs his sleep. He opens his computer to chat with the Japanese friends he made online. He loves living in the U.S. Especially all the different cultures living together. Sushi is his favorite food. Recently, someone told him about a restaurant that has a conveyor belt sending sushi around to all the tables. He never heard of sushi back in El Salvador.

*****

Barbara Pilgrim has eaten half of the oatmeal and puts the metal lid on and leaves it on the stove for later. She pulls on her coat and walks out into her backyard. The backyard is small and flat with two mature pecan trees. Walking helps her to calm down and settle the overworked muscle in her chest.  It’s that time of night when even the bugs and frogs are sleeping and the birdsong is still waiting on a little light. Her cat is about and whining. Barbara bends down to stroke his back and says, I guess this is when my granddaddy got up to feed the chickens and let the cows out. Yes, kitty, I will get you some food. 

No one really comes to see her anymore since her husband died. Even Pastor Blank only came when she called him. She has kids and grandkids, but now that they are grown they seem so far away, so different and so hard to understand. And the days are so long in between their visits. 

She does enjoy the sweet hispanic family next door, especially Freddie. He comes by a couple times a week to see if she’s doing okay and helps her with the lawn. They have tea afterwards. 

BUMP!

*****

These new rumors of work raids were bothering Alfredo. This past Sunday, his pastor was encouraging everyone to come up with a written plan of what should happen with their children if they get picked up and deported. Alfredo doesn’t like to think about it. He has lived in the U.S. longer than he had lived in El Salvador. Police and ICE officers are scary, but nothing like being sent back. 

BUMP! 

“What was that?” He looks upstairs, but all the kids are asleep... 

He looks outside and sees a strange van in Barbara’s backyard. He puts his shoes back on and heads over, but slow and cautious.

*****

Jimmy is wide-eyed and listening hard to the hum of his tires as if they are a special instrument for measuring the pavement. The house has a side entrance driveway and it's possible to park on the grass in the backyard and be out of sight. It’s downhill from the road at the end of the cul-de-sac. Once he turns on her street, he cuts the lights. Seems like the safest plan. 

God, I hope she’s sleeping. Old ladies are tricky though, unpredictable sleep patterns, he thinks to himself. 

He cuts the engine, and rolls down her driveway in neutral, turning his van into her backyard. BUMP. “What the hell!” He forgot about the lawn jockey she keeps in the back for sentimental reasons. He made notes about it and still forgot! He grabs his bag and hops out of the car. He starts to walk toward the back door when he sees a moving shadow near the fenceline. “Oh my God!” She's in the backyard! He considers running away, but then he has to start over. The loan shark isn’t known for his patience. Jimmy runs toward her, and hits her with his elbow as she starts to scream. Either from the blow or fright she goes down and is quiet. “Dammit to hell!”

*****

There is a full moon above the tree line so Scott can see. The air is finally getting cold and it feels good on his skin. He sees the van, barely hanging out behind the last house on the cul-de-sac. Betty or Brenda or something lives there. Scott hires her to babysit his kids sometimes. He picks up the pace, but is still cautious. 

“What the hell!” He sees a big guy with crazy black hair. The big guy is walking toward the backyard from the neighbors house. “He pulls his gun and takes off the safety. “FREEZE or I’ll shoot!” 

Alfredo stops. He stops everything. He stops breathing, his heart stops for a moment. Are the police here? Are they pointing a gun at him? He can’t see who is behind him. !Dios mio! Maybe he should have ignored the sound. But who could be visiting Barbara at this time? He knows the van wasn’t there when he came home. Is the person with the gun from the van? 

Alfredo wonders if he could run for it. Then he shivers and Scott shoots. BANG! Alfredo’s left arm is stinging cold and hot at the same time. 

Before Scott can think of what to do next, he sees Jimmy, dressed in black, running from the back door.  

****

Minutes before, Jimmy, hoping no one had heard the old lady start to scream, ran to her backdoor which was unlocked and started running around the house. Honestly, he was pretty freaked out that he may have killed the old lady. “Oh my God! This house has too much stuff!” He tripped and fell over a stack of magazines. He finally made his way to the bedroom. Benji said it was in the bottom of the bedroom closet. He pulls back all the hanging clothes and stoops down. There it is! A fancy wooden box, like a small trunk. “Jackpot!” And lucky for him the lock is open. With a smile, he unhooks the small padlock and opens the top. 

The box is empty, except for a few old photos of Barbara and Arlen. “MOTHER--”

Then he hears a voice outside yell “Freeze or I’ll shoot!” Then he hears the shot. BANG. Ohhh my God! There are two people in the yard! He’s gotta run for it. All the blood rushes into his head and arms and legs and he runs faster than he ever has in his life, out the back door and straight for the van.  

Scott yells, “STOP! I’ll shoot!” 

No break in his sprint, Jimmy is in the van in two seconds. BANG! 

He starts the engine and throws it in reverse. BANG! BANG! Jimmy’s out of the yard, puts it in drive and stomps on the gas. His tires squeal as he flies up the driveway. 

Scott slows down and takes his time. With a steadier arm, BANG, he shoots out the passenger back tire. The tire collapses and the van veers right, but Jimmy recovers and is in the street. Scott aims at the back window, BANG. The window shatters.

Scott is running now. The van zooms up Pennfield leaving Scott behind. When he gets to his house on the corner, he hits all the buttons on his garage door keypad and waits as the door opens. He has his keys in his pocket, so no time is lost. He tears off in his white Ford F 150 after the van. 

*****

Barbara is lying facedown on the grass in her backyard. She was just starting to wake with the commotion when Scott started shooting. The gunfire, following the assault, pushed her right over the edge. Am I dead? My body is frozen. She feels alone—terribly alone. She thinks of Arlen, her lively husband who died three years ago. They had been planning a big vacation to Australia just two months before his health took a turn. Did they start out to Australia and crash the plane? He must be burned up and now she is marooned on a deserted island. She started crying and saying his name. Then she started calling for her grandma.

*****

Alfredo’s arm is throbbing, but his fingers work and his arm moves. The van pulls away and Scott runs off. Alfredo sees something moving on the ground in Barbara’s backyard. It is Barbara. “Jesús ten piedad.” He walks over and finds her white as paper and very cold. Her head is bleeding. Her eyes are open and she is crying and talking to herself. Alfredo listens, but cannot make sense of what she is saying. He kneels down beside her and tries to speak softly so she won’t be afraid. 

“Barbara. Barbara, are you okay, Barbara?” 

At first, she smashes her eyes closed and her face contorts in fright and alarm, but then she opens them and sees Alfredo’s black mane. Despite everything, she smiles, 

“Freddie! Oh thank you Freddie! Thank God it's you!” 

“Yes, it’s me. Can you walk? Let’s get you inside.”

While kneeling, he puts his head under her left arm and uses his right arm to help her stand up. Once they are up, she starts to pass out but he also has hold of her with his right arm. He is much bigger than Barbara, so even with his wounded left arm, he gets her into her living room. Once she is lying on the couch and covered with an afghan, he calls 911. He tells them about Barbara and the robbery, but doesn’t tell them about his arm. 

He knows it’s not good for him to be in the house when the police arrive. But it’s not good for Barbara to be alone, either. 

*****

Scott is on the road and trying to calculate which direction the van went. There are only two choices off Kingsbury and he knows the van won’t take the dead end. He is going fast but there is no one out. Then he sees the van! He dials 911. “Yes, reporting active robbery. Plate# AGC8996. I’m following. ... I know. I won’t approach.” 

Jimmy sees the white truck coming up behind him and has a feeling it’s the gunman. He takes a left and sure enough the truck takes a left. He shouts and slams his hand against the steering wheel. He knows it's over now.

****

Alfredo is sitting beside Barbara in her living room. She is laying on a blue terry-cloth couch and he is sitting in a pink chair with lots of buttons. He is telling her about the funny things he found when cleaning up the stadium tonight. She thinks he is doing it for her sake, but he is really doing it for his own sake. He is talking about nothing so he can pretend this is afternoon tea time. 

While telling her about finding something called Fixodent Complete, Barbara interrupts, 

“Freddie, it's going to be alright. Freddie, you are my best neighbor.”

They are silent sitting together for a moment. Barbara imagines they are thinking about the same thing in their silence. She is shocked at what happened, but she also feels safe. She feels like a little girl—like the little girl on her granddaddy’s farm, back when neighbors helped one another and watched out for one another.

Alfredo is remembering why he and his brother fled to the US. He is thinking about his cousin who was killed. He is thinking about the desert heat and the days wandering to get across the border. They had to walk thirty-five miles to be picked up again in the US. Along the way were lots of clothes and makeup and other things tossed aside and sometimes stick crosses. He often thought of the cloth doll laying next to one of those crosses.

The ambulance arrived first and wrapped Barbara’s head and loaded her into the ambulence. She made them promise to look at Alfredo before they left. A young EMT looked at his arm and wrapped it to stop the bleeding. The bullet only grazed his arm. Then the ambulance left and he was alone with the police.

The police asked him a bunch of questions. He kept hoping that would be all. But one of the officers, a younger guy, in his thirties, with a handlebar mustache kept asking about his ID. “You live right next door, Alfredo! Can’t be too much trouble to fetch it for us” Finally, the officer shifted to asking him if he was here legally. He said if Alfredo didn’t have documents the officer was required to report to ICE. 

And then, it was done. They took him in the back of the police car to the station. He was allowed to make one phone call and he chose to call his boss. Garry came down to the jail and begged them to consider the situation. The cops said they had already reported Mr. Espino to ICE and there was nothing they could do. Alfredo would remain in the jail until ICE took him to Bedford Detention Center.

Great for my campaign! 

“pasó por el otro lada” | “he passed by on the other side” Luke 10

The last forty-eight hours for Scott have been a whirlwind. “Local Politician Single-Handedly Stops Home Invasion!” was the headline from the local paper. The NRA has asked to do an interview for America’s First Freedom. Now he is getting the final touches on his makeup before going on a local talk show, Good Morning with Brent Holcomb!

 

Brent Holcomb Well, that is an incredible story, Scott! 

Scott Camp Brent, [emotion rises, but he stops it at his Adam’s apple, the whole time his blue eyes staring right into the camera] when I was seventeen, someone broke into my girlfriends house, shot her mother and stole her television. Her mother died a week later. 

Brent That is terrible! It clearly still affects you deeply. [pause] I need to ask you a question as a journalist. It's about Mr. Espino, Barbara’s neighbor who came over to help. What about The Good Samaritan Law? Do you think it is right that Mr. Espino is being deported after trying to help Mrs. Pilgrim? 

Scott Brent, I agree this is a difficult circumstance and I am not a lawyer, but I have been told there are a few problems in this case; 1) The law does not specify protection for illegal immigrants; 2) We also don’t know why Espino was there in the first place. 

Brent Well, is there anything else you want to say before we go to a commercial break? 

Scott Thank you for having me on to share my story and please remember me at the polls this November! 

Build the church! 

“likewise … when he was at the place, came and looked … and passed by on the other side.” Luke 10

Pastor Blank was finishing a late lunch and re-reading his newsletter. He had a bad habit of reading them over again after he sent them out and finding small errors. Today, it’s not a grammar or spelling, but the tone and emphasis of his final paragraph: 

The United States of America has changed over the last two-hundred and fifty years, but what holds together one generation to the next is the spirit of freedom and diligent strength. And something else ... our devotion to God and our strong commitment to doing what is right. Friends, we must keep hold of this spirit, this devotion and this commitment so we will see a brighter tomorrow. 

He wanted something grand and full of the larger scope of our history. But was the summary correct? Freedom, diligence, God and righteousness, what of community or neighborliness. He was wishing he had never agreed to preach a series on who is my neighbor. It seems that the time of neighbors has passed. 

The television is on behind him and Blank hears Camp being interviewed on Five Alive. He turns around and is in rapt attention for thirty seconds. Then he shouts at the Da Vinci print, definitely to Jesus this time: “Jesus! Barbara Pilgrim had a home invasion! Oh Lord, have mercy.” The back of his neck starts to tingle. Blank was at her house on Monday. She gave him a box full of cash savings, more than five thousand dollars. She wanted to donate it to the building campaign. She seemed depressed. Blank tried to talk her out of it, but she refused to let him leave without it. He felt bad taking so much money from an old lady, but also felt it was for a good cause.

Bedford Heights 

“tuvo compasión…” | “But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, had compassion, bound up the wounds, pouring on oil and wine … whatever it cost.” Luke 10

Alfredo was sitting in a cell in Bedford Heights. 

Through the hall, away from where Alfredo could see or hear, beyond a set of heavy double doors, Barbara told the guard that she needed to see: “Freddie, umm Mr. Fred Espino.” The guard was tall and thick, but not overweight. He politely explained to Mrs. Pilgrim that inmates were only allowed one visit per week. “Alfredo already had a visit yesterday, Maam.” He smiled to help her see it was not personal. But when he did, he saw she had been crying and had a bandage on her head. The guard hesitated and decided to let her in and went to call Alfredo. 

Barbara walked into a room with three chairs lined up in front of three thick windows. She sits at the first one. In front of her is a phone, the old kind, black with a gray cord. On the other side of the window is another chair and another phone. A door opens to her left and Alfredo comes in. He is wearing a tan prison suit and sits down across the glass from her. He smiles when he sees Barbara and picks up the phone.

Barbara remains frozen looking directly into Alfredo’s brown eyes. His eyes and face are puffy from crying and she feels her own tears filling. Alfredo holds his phone out and she reaches for the one on her side.

“Oh Freddie!” She is crying.

Alfredo begins to cry too. He is remembering his abuela. The last day he was in El Salvador he went over to her house to say goodbye. She cried while he sat by her side and told her how much he would miss her. That was the last time he saw her. She died five years ago. 

Now this was the last time he would see Barbara. He looked at her bandaged head and felt compassion for her.

“How do you feel, Barbara?” 

Barbara couldn’t speak. The words kept sticking in her throat. She wanted to tell him that he filled her with memories of her grandfather and the old times. She wanted to tell him that she didn’t care that he wasn’t an american citizen. She wondered if she could adopt him? Surely there was something. She felt herself choking and stopped to take a deep breath. Finally she was able to speak.

“Freddie,” she said, “I don’t want you to go.”